Over Labor Day weekend, Andrew and I woke up at 3 AM to start our journey to Baltimore to attend my all time favorite convention, Baltimore Comic Con. It’s been two years since I’ve been able to go and it was so great to be back! The reason I love Baltimore so very much is that the main emphasis of the show is on comics and it’s evident of that focus when you look at the guest list each year. They always manage to book the top writers and artists in the industry and it’s a pleasure to spend time on their show floor. It’s not like SDCC or NYCC where walking from one end of the convention to the other end is an unbearable feat that requires you to set aside at least 30 minutes for. And on the day of the costume contest, they always have some amazing cosplayers! Admittedly, the show was a bit quieter this year after having been moved to Labor Day Weekend because Baltimore Comic Con was competing with 8 other conventions. I still had a wonderful time and I fully expect to attend again next year when the date gets pushed back later in the month. A major plus of the convention is that it’s right near the beautiful Barnes & Noble in the inner harbor which is totally worth a trip to. Anyway, here’s the footage of our trip and my video of the treasures I acquired.

Hello bookworms! Here are two of my three monthly wrap up videos (my book haul will be coming later in the week). I had a really great reading month in August- I read 9 books total which might not sound like ton but almost all of the books I read were quite long. I would be interested in going back through my spreadsheet of book stats and figuring out how many pages I read in August because I would bet that it’s my highest page count yet in 2016. I’m so excited to get into September reading because I have such a wonderful TBR to enjoy this month! I’m going to begin reading some spooky books and have them get increasingly scarier as we lead into October. Also Empire of Storms is finally out today and I cannot wait for more of that story!

Hello bookworms! Today I have an exciting giveaway to share with you! I partnered with Penguin Teen to giveaway a copy of the upcoming YA fantasy novel, The Reader by Traci Chee which is the first book in the Sea of Ink and Gold series, as well as an adorable tote bag! The Reader follows a girl named Safi who lives in a world without books which is something that I never could / would ever want to imagine. What would even be the point of anything? There would be no learning, no internet, and everything would be extremely primitive. Books provide such a wonderful escape into other worlds. They force us to see things from perspectives different than our own and I truly believe that they help to make us more tolerant and accepting of other cultures and allow us to have empathy for people in situations different than our own. They’re also a wonderful way to experience other parts of the world that you may not be able to afford to travel to and they teach important lessons. There’s a quote I’ve seen online that essentially says that books are the only purchase that make you richer and I fully stand behind that sentiment. That’s why when Penguin contacted me about celebrating books and sharing The Reader I jumped at the chance! Below is a synopsis of the book, my video about the books I couldn’t live without and the rafflecopter form to enter the giveaway! Good luck and even if you don’t win, the book comes out on September 13th so you should definitely look for it at your local bookstore! If you want to get a taste for the book, you can read the first two chapters here.

Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is brutally murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone, none of her survival skills can help her discover where Nin’s been taken, or if she’s even alive. The only clue to both her aunt’s disappearance and her father’s murder is the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an object she comes to realize is a book—a marvelous item unheard of in her otherwise illiterate society. With the help of this book, and the aid of a mysterious stranger with dark secrets of his own, Sefia sets out to rescue her aunt and find out what really happened the day her father was killed—and punish the people responsible.

With overlapping stories of swashbuckling pirates and merciless assassins, The Reader is a brilliantly told adventure from an extraordinary new talent.

I’ve been having a really fun time getting into vlogging! It’s really weird and awkward at first if you’re filming in public so I’m still adjusting to that but I love having the footage to look back on afterward so I’ve been making a concerted effort to vlog whenever I’m on the go. Two weekends ago, I had a really exciting string of days so I combined footage from Jonathan of Geekscape’s Pokemon Go meetup, PotterCon at Irving Plaza in NYC and National Book Lover’s Day at Barnes and Noble with Monica. At PotterCon I finally got to meet Jordandene who is a super lovely person and she filmed a little clip with me for my video! There’s also a ton of Harry Potter cosplay (the winner of the contest’s cosplay is one of my favorite I’ve ever seen) and a mini book haul.

Judging by my Pokemon addiction, it was only a matter of time until I found a book tag to go along with it! I have to say that my interest has been tapering off a bit lately because I’ve caught *most* of what’s out there and I get bored seeing the same things over and over again. I think my interest will be renewed when the game is updated with trading or the addition of my Sylveon<3 But as you’ll see in my video, I’m pretty excited about my Gengar! Thanks again to Aentee of Read at Midnight for creating such a wonderful tag and amazing graphics to go along with it!

July was a big book haul month for me since it’s my birthday month! I added so many new titles to my never-ending TBR list but since I’m already having a wonderful reading month this August, I’m excited to jump into so many of them. It was a slow month for new releases (as summer usually is) but I definitely made up for that with a bunch of backlist books!

Anyone who knows Andrew and I knows that books are my thing and video games are his thing. He’s been wanting to start a video game channel on YouTube for quite some time now but everything got a bit sidetracked since we were crazy busy planning our wedding. I had gotten Andrew the game capture equipment he needed for Christmas last year so that just shows you how long this has been in the works! I’m so excited to be part of Andrew’s channel and it’s really fun to be able to collaborate with him on something that I know he loves.

I definitely consider myself more of a casual gamer. I love the old games from my childhood (which is why we’re starting with Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Quest as our first Let’s Play series), Pokemon (in all of its iterations) and anything I can play on my 3DS. I’m definitely going to be going out of my comfort zone as we continue on with new games because my gaming skills seem to have peaked during the N64 days. I’m horrible at first person shooters and other games that require me to control where I’m looking and walking simultaneously. I feel like people are going to watch our channel and think I’m great at gaming and then the second we debut a newer game, everyone will see just how awful I really am lol! Either way, it’s fun to spend some quality time with Andrew and record our conversations. I’ve always wanted to make more time to play video games so I’m excited that we now have a reason to do so!

I’m glad we waited to start the channel too because Andrew worked really hard on all of the channel art and it completely paid off. I’m heed over heels in love with his design! He made me into a magical girl Pokemon trainer<3 And he animated the opening sequence. Andrew’s brother and my brother-in-law Joe also created the music for us! (Fun fact: Joe did the credits music in my YouTube videos too!)

Anyway, here are the first few episodes of our Let’s Plays! I hope you enjoy and if there are any games you want us to play, let us know in the comments and we’ll keep a running list for future episodes!

Earlier this year, Alexa of Alexa Loves Books, Cee of The Novel Hermit, Cristina of Girl in the Pages, Sierra of SDavReads & I all discovered that we shared a mutual love and appreciation for Sailor Moon! After exchanging plenty of flailing tweets and constantly bringing up our love for this magical girl story, we felt it was only right to celebrate it – and that’s what happening this July. Every week will feature a brand new blog post per day from each of us, and we’re so excited to be sharing the Sailor Moon love with all our readers!

This week we’re each discussing Sailor Moon swag! I posted my wish list yesterday because I was having some technical difficulties uploading my video of my Sailor Moon art collection. But the good news is that I have it to post today (even though it’s totally Cee’s day and you should head over to her blog to see her post)! Don’t forget to check out our Sailor Moon Favorites, Sailor Moon Book Tag, enter our giveaway!

I changed my mind about participating in BookTube-A-Thon because my Pokemon Go addiction is real and I want to give myself the motivation to put down my phone for a week (at least) and refocus on reading. Good luck to everyone else participating as well!

Now that we’re already halfway through the month it seems like a good time to finally post my July TBR. These are all the books I’m planning on reading it July (although I am completely failing at reading because Pokemon Go has been my life this month). I’m giving myself today as my last day to be super obsessed and then I’m going to get back to some serious binge reading next week, just in time for the BookTube-A-Thon which I am sort of casually participating in. I’m not committing to five books for the week though because next Saturday is my birthday!